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Child Development

General Psychology

47.101

Types of development that occur in

childhood

Physical development

Development of body structures Motor development

Motor skills (ex: walking)

Cognitive development Ability to think

Language development

Social development How child perceives and deals with others

Development as Orderly Progression

Fixed sequence of steps Both physical and psychological

Examples Motor development (physical)

Hold up head, roll over, crawl, sit, stand, walk

Cognitive development (psychological) Language: coo, babbles, first word, two word, and so on

What contributes to orderly process? Maturation (nature)

Genetically programmed

Practice (nurture) Experience

Physical Development

Human infant relatively helpless at birth

Brain is far from mature

Size only (only 23% of cranial capacity at birth)

# of neural connections very sparse

Physical growth

Spurts

Nature versus nurture

Motor DevelopmentReflexes

Rooting reflex: touch cheek, turn towards sensation and openmouth

Grasping reflex: objects touch palm, child closes hand and grasps

But for most motor skills, maturation is critical

Piagets Theory of CognitiveDevelopment

4 Stages

Sensory Motor (0-2yrs)

Pre-operational (2- 7yrs)

Concrete operations (7-11 yrs)

Formal Operations (11+ yrs)

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Sensory-Motor Stage (0 - 2 yrs) World defined only by direct sensory or motor

experience

Lack ability to represent objects in ones mind

Lack object permanence

Out of sight out of mind

Lack the ability to think symbolically

Symbolic thinking in children

Pre-operational Stage (2-7 yrs) While can represent objects in the mind (develops ability

to think symbolically) lack coherence

Conservation failure Quantity Mass

Number Why?

Failure to connectdifferent dimensionsof situation Liquid example

Height and width of glass(#5 Developing Child-Disc. Psych.

Clip: 10min-11:25min)

Egocentrism Only understand their perspective

Three mountain problem

3 mountain problem

Concrete Operations

Able to apply logical thinkingto concrete objects

Can apply rules Develops conservation

Reversibility

Any change in the shape,position, or order of mattercan be reversed mentally

Formal Operations

Ability to apply logical thinking to abstractproblems and hypothetical situations

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